ARTICLES ABOUT FAMILY INCOME BY DATE - PAGE 4

Economists will tell you the average price of a new car has doubled in the last 15 years. Auto industry analysts counter that it now costs consumers less, in terms of percentage of household income or weeks' pay, to buy a new car than it did their parents or grandparents. True in both cases. But while car prices are climbing, so is the amount of family income needed to buy new wheels. In 1947, the earliest year we've been able to track these statistics, the average price of a new car was $1,864, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The women of Paris and Poughkeepsie think alike more than most people would imagine. In fact, Western European and U.S. women have very similar attitudes toward work and family. On both sides of the Atlantic, women expect to work and care for their families and do not see one detracting from the other. Those and other similarities -- and a few differences -- were highlighted recently with the release in Europe of a study of more than 7,000 women and men from five European countries.

What would you do if your spouse: (1) ran up a debt so large that most of your family income was taken to pay just the interest; (2) sent large checks to neighbors who are needy due to wasteful spending and poor management; (3) allowed neighbors to sneak into your home to live, then paid their medical bills and gave them money because they weren't working; (4) encouraged arguments between different groups such as rich/poor, black/white, male/female and young/old; (5) wanted more and more control over your life, without your input; and (6)

Dear Ann Landers: I just read your response to "Mom in Matthews, N.C." She said her 18-year-old son, "Billy," pays rent, but she wants to put a midnight curfew on his girlfriend's visits. I couldn't believe it when you sided with her. First, if Billy is still in school, what in the world is she doing charging him rent? Second, if Billy is 18, he is legally an adult, no longer a "schoolboy." If Mom feels she needs to exact rent from her son, what he buys with his money is the right to conduct his life in his home as he sees fit. He is entitled to have guests, set his own hours and do anything else he chooses--the same as anyone else who pays rent.

Experts at the National Academy of Sciences will soon recommend significant changes in the way poverty is defined and measured, and the changes could substantially increase the number of working Americans classified as poor. The official definition of poverty used by the federal government for three decades is based simply on cash income before taxes. But in a report to be issued Wednesday, a panel of experts convened by the academy three years ago at the behest of Congress says the government should move toward a concept of poverty based on disposable income, the amount left after a family pays taxes and essential expenses.

After 17 years in the United States, I-Hsun Jan of Naperville has a master's degree, a husband, two children and two promotions at AT&T Bell Laboratories to her credit. "The U.S. turned out to be better than I thought," said Jan, 40, who came from Taipei, Taiwan, when she was 23 to study computer science at the University of Missouri. The Jan family represents one part of the local Asian-American demographic picture-the highly educated, successful individual who has helped his or her community as a whole make major economic progress as compared to whites in the Chicago area during the last 20 years.

There's no doubt about it: The status of employed women improved between 1980 and 1990. U.S. women are better educated, hold more jobs and get better salaries, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a non-profit research organization based in Washington, D.C. Researchers Martha Farnsworth Riche and Kelvin Pollard analyzed census data, and their findings were published in a study funded by the Ford Foundation. The good news: - Three out of four U.S. women age 25 and up are high school graduates; nearly one of five has a college degree; and women make up 46 percent of all Americans with degrees.

The Chicago Department of Housing has set up a special hot line for low- and moderate-income homeowners whose furnaces give up in Chicago's notorious winter months, Mayor Richard Daley announced Monday. By calling the special number at 1-800-773-2447 at any time of the day or night, a homeowner whose furnace or heating system has failed can get information on low-income loans that the city will provide to fund emergency repair or replacement expenses. Owners of single-family homes can receive low-interest loans of up to $6,000, and people who own and live in a building of three or four units can receive loans up to $15,000.

Grants totaling $365 million have been awarded by the Annenberg Foundation to three universities and a preparatory school, with more than half of money earmarked to fund innovations in communications education. Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California and the Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J., will share the money, the foundation said. "The grants respond to the rising costs of education with scholarship programs open to students from middle-income as well as low-income families," the foundation said.

Problem: I'm employed, but my husband earns a large percentage of our family income. I work closely with my boss, who is 20 years older than I am and has four children (I have none). He makes a little more than I do, but much less than my family income. The problem is that every Monday morning he asks me what I did over the weekend. My lifestyle is so much more luxurious than his that I am embarrassed to tell him the truth but feel awkward about lying. How should I answer him? Solution: It's nice that you're sensitive enough to be aware that the differences in your lifestyles could cause him discomfort.